Scaffolding Activities Increase Performance and Lower Frustration with Genotype-to-Evolution Models in Molecular Genetics

摘要

Modeling is a foundational practice of science (1). Models serve to explain and/or predict phenomena and are therefore different from other visualizations that just represent or recreate. Conceptual modeling strives to show how or why something works and to explain the effects of perturbations on a system (2). Conceptual modeling can allow students to integrate topics instead of simply compartmentalizing knowledge using artificial barriers of chapters, exams, or even courses. Students in molecular genetics need to be able to relate molecular reasoning and mechanisms to an organism’s phenotype and inheritance, as well as to the population in terms of evolution. However, the majority of students are unable to articulate how genes mechanistically determine phenotype and are unable to connect gene expression and protein activity with phenotype (3–4).